[lifthrasiir]

It feels weird to me that you are complaining about the complexity of WYSIWYG editors then proceed to complain the licensing cost of CKEditor which would have solved that very complexity. Wouldn't that mean the complexity of WYSIWYG editors is so high that such a business model works?

[qwertox]

I'm not even sure if it really fits my case, since the editor would need to be able to create Vue components which maintain the reactivity. TinyMCE breaks all reactivity as soon as it "wraps" it all in the editor. CKEditor apparently has a way to do this (up- and downscaling), but there is the very unclear licensing issue. One active user is a user which has used the editor once in a month. So, for example, one which just signs up to check out the service and then does nothing with it ever again and doesn't subscribe.

So if I invest my time into learning this upscaling/downscaling issue, which can get complicated with a Vue component, all this in the context of prototyping the entire app, where the primary functionality gained by CKEditor the ability to enable drag and drop (move) of components as if they were pictures, it seems like overkill, since directly manipulating the DOM to move elements appears to be a a much more simple task.

I've made a test wit ondrag, ondrop and what JavasScript has to offer and it mostly works, but there are some small issues which I just can't resolve and don't know if I can resolve them if I invest more time in that direction.

So currently I'm checking out drag and drop libraries, which mostly seem to fit the purpose, but also have issues.

This is what I was getting at with my initial comment, that it's so hard to make these decisions if the outcome of the paths is so unclear. It's all a struggle between decisions and their tests which need to be made.

Assuming CKEditor would solve the issues for me, then the initial cost would still be to high. That would be different with a stable stream of income, but new services usually don't have that.

Free for up to 5 active users per billing period? This would be take 5 users to just check out the service and then that's it for the rest of the month. 37 USD for 25 active users per billing period? Simply not doable for me in the context of a startup.

> What is the minimum length of subscription-based software licenses? 12 months.

That's 444 USD for 288 potential users which wouldn't get charged more than 2 or 3 USD per month.

[mrrobotchicken]

I'd suggest you to contact sales to learn the details of custom licensing options if you haven't already, also to make sure you're understanding the active users correctly for your case.

It still offers an open source option so you can test all its limits and see if it fits your case or not. Also if your project is not proprietary there is still the free for open source option in case your project is not compatible with GPL2+.